Silicon Graphics Inc., the perma-struggling workstation-turned-server-maker, filed for bankruptcy protection today, and was immediately bought by Rackable Systems. Rackable has signed to take on all of SGI's liabilities. The deal is expected to complete in 60 days. The combined company will target the hyper-competitive market for x86 boxes for cluster and high performance computing, internet and cloud services. "This combination gives us the potential for significant operational synergies, a strong balance sheet, and positions the combined company for long-term growth and profitability," said Rackable CEO Mark Barrenechea.

For everyone that remembers big, expensive Unix workstations from the 80s and 90s this is the end of an era. Sadly, SGI got its lunch eaten by more powerful x86 PCs with the advent of them running the x86 'Unix' everyone had been waiting for - Linux. They got into Linux too late but it kept them going for a while rather than prolonging what was already dead. Sun also got their workstation business eaten and the end-game is in sight for them as well. They've had a bad quarter, trust me. It's been a tough period that is finishing a lot of once great giants.

It really is the end of an era. Is Unix dead? Almost. There's certainly nothing new happening, that's for sure.